Various attempts have been made to cover ice rink surfaces, such as by the use of insulation. Reference is made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,728,536, 4,632,329, and 4,281,802 which describe some of those attempts. In the '536 patent, for example, use is made of a metastable liquid foam over the ice surface. In the '329 and '802 patents use is made of a flexible insulating blanket to cover the ice surface which involves a mechanism for reeling and unreeling of the device.
Among the problems that must be taken into account in designing an effective cover system is the non-standardized sizes and shapes of such ice rinks, as well as the difficulties in storing, deploying and retracting any cover system.